Trilogy of the desert: Mirage
(1946)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
36.1 × 59.3 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
The Eugenie Crawford Bequest, Professor AGL Shaw AO Bequest, The Nigel Peck AM and Patricia Peck Fund, Morry Fraid AM and The Spotlight Foundation, The Fox Family Foundation, Ken Harrison AM and Jill Harrison, The Hansen Little Foundation, The Betsy and Ollie Polasek Endowment and donors to the 2018 NGV Foundation Annual Dinner and 2018 NGV Annual Appeal, 2017
© Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí/VEGAP, Madrid. Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
Gallery location
Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
Salvador Dalí lived in the United States from 1940 to 1948, where he embraced American consumerism. He created three paintings, including Mirage, for the Shulton cosmetics company for their launch of Desert Flower, a scent for women. In the work, a gaunt female figure with the sturdy legs of a Michelangelo, the voluptuous bosom of Raphael’s La Fornarina, 1518–19, and the hair of a Botticelli goddess, plucks the flower of ‘rescued civilisation’ from the head of the ancient Apollo Belvedere sculpture. Through figurative works such as this, Dalí was rebelling against abstraction, announcing his rebirth as an artist/craftsman inspired by Italian Renaissance masters.
Frame: reproduction 2018, based on Dalí’s early framing of
the painting
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
California / New York, United States
Inscription
inscribed (diagonally) in black paint l.c.l.: DALI
Accession Number
2017.453
Department
International Painting
Subjects (general)
Architecture Human Figures Landscapes
Subjects (specific)
Apollo (Greco-Roman deity) arches busts (general, figures) classicism deserts flowers (plant components) stonework women (female humans)